The Routledge Companion to Critical and Cultural Theory, 2nd Edition

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ECO, UMBERTO (1932–) Italian author and theorist, Eco is Professor of Semiotics at the University of Bologna. His early work has much in common with reader-response theory, arguing in The Open Work (1989) (Opera aperta, 1962) that texts should be regarded as dynamic and open to numerous, but not limitless, interpretations. His theoretical writings explore the application of semiotics to both high and low culture (see A Theory of Semiotics, 1976), rejecting Saussure's emphasis on linguistic study, and taking in a wide range of texts from outside the literary canon. Eco's semiotic theory is perhaps most engagingly expressed in The Role of the Reader (1979), in which he develops the arguments set out in The Open Work to discuss the role ...